Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Sweden April 2017

Nissan Leaf #2 in April with personal bestOnce again we start the month with Sweden, which registered 1.191 units, a slight 3% drop over the same period last year, it seems local buyers spent more time than usual taking care of their tax returns and forgot EV's for a while...Consequently, the EV Share dropped ever so slightly, to 4.2%, but still comfortably ahead of last year 3.6%.

On April top sellers, we find the usual winner (Passat GTE), but the runner-up was a surprise, after delivering 185 units in March, the Nissan Leaf once again has beaten the odds and registered 189 units, its best result EVER, since it started to be delivered in this market, way back in 2011.Why the sudden surge? Nissan should be selling them with deep discounts and bargain hunters across Sweden must be flocking to buy them, eager to find the best (Only?) discount EV on the market.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nissan started to promote them in IKEA shops, with something like: "Buy a Oppland bed and win a 35% discount on a brand new Nissan Leaf"

Pl

Model

Sales

1

Volkswagen Passat GTE

218

2

Nissan Leaf

189

3

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

130

4

Volvo V60 Plug-In

94

5

BMW 330e

69

Looking at the YTD models ranking, this time there wasn't many changes, the Nissan Leaf recovered some ground regarding the Second Placed Outlander PHEV, the Tesla Model S dropped one position to #5, consequence of the expected off-peak month, while the Renault Zoe climbed two positions to #7, sending the local heroe Volvo XC90 PHEV down two places to #9, thus losing the Best Selling Luxury SUV to the #8 Tesla Model X(!)

Final mention to the great landing month of the Second Generation Prius PHEV, with 30 units, which could mean that the Japanese hatchback could be running for a Top 5 place by the end of the year.

On the EV manufacturers ranking, the leader Volkswagen (31%, down 2%) has its leadership hitting a turning point back to growth, with the first restyled Golf plug-ins arriving this month to help it secure VW's #1. Mitsubishi (14%) is in the runner-up place, while BMW (12%) is resisting in Third, with Volvo, Nissan and Tesla (All at 11%) just outside the podium.

Combining April sales of regular hybrids with plug-ins, the usual 100% Toyota podium was spoiled by the VW Passat GTE reaching Third Place, pushing the Toyota Yaris Hybrid to Fourth.But the big news was the Fifth Place of the Nissan Leaf, not happy with shaming all the "Kids" in the Plug-In ranking, the Mr. Miyagi of EV's still found time to show up on this ranking, being the oldest model here.